


spirits in my head

by espressohno



Series: to sit in a library [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Confessions, Dissociation, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:06:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7354726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressohno/pseuds/espressohno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fifth and final part to the series that all starts with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6272059">this fic</a></p><p>after seven years, it's time for jim to come home</p>
            </blockquote>





	spirits in my head

**Author's Note:**

> usually when i have an au that i put a lot of work into i start to create a sort of playlist to listen to while i write. and this one i decided to publish on my 8tracks! you can find it [here](http://8tracks.com/espressohno/spirits-in-my-head)
> 
> and that's the end of this series! thanks for sticking with me, everyone <3

Leonard came out of the bathroom with a towel slung around his waist and his phone held up to one ear. Jim looked up from the book he was reading. Half of his body was still tangled in the duvet. The closest thing he’d come to getting out of bed that morning was reaching for a book off of the floor and digging his glasses out of the clutter on the bedside table. Then he rolled back up and sprawled out in the middle of the bed, listened to the shower running from the bathroom and tried to wake up enough to understand intermediate German. 

“Morgen.” 

Leonard smiled. A little bit. It was more of a twitch in the corner of his mouth, but the feeling was there. 

Jim tried to sit up. He barely found his balance on one elbow, pushed up his glasses and watched the muscles in Leonard’s back as he searched through the closet. 

“Yeah. Okay. I can come in.” Leonard said. He hung up the phone and pulled some hangers from the back. 

“I didn’t even know you owned scrubs.” Jim finally managed to sit up. 

“Of course I own scrubs. I’m a doctor.” 

“You work in management.” 

“Used to be a surgeon.” Leonard said. He dropped his towel to the floor and Jim felt his face heat up a little bit, even though they had seen each other naked probably half a million times by now. He trailed his eyes over tanned, freckled skin and smooth muscles as Leonard bent over to get dressed. 

“Have you been demoted?” 

Usually they had more time in the mornings. Leonard worked 9 to 5, and Jim didn’t have work until the afternoon on Fridays. They would take the time to make real breakfast and eat it out on the balcony and have sex once or twice before Joanna came over for the weekend. Jim checked his phone. It was barely 8:00. He wondered why the hell Leonard was hopping into a pair of scrubs like he was in a hurry. 

“Our head surgeon got himself sick with the flu, the moron. I agreed to cover for him even though this is on incredibly short notice and the hospital probably won’t pay me the inevitable overtime.”

Jim nodded, slightly lost. He untangled himself from the duvet and tried to stand up. By the time he was on his feet Leonard was already in the next room. He heard the coffee machine turn on. 

The sounds of Leonard making coffee and, presumably, tracking down his wallet and shoes from around the apartment, continued as Jim pulled on a t-shirt over his boxers and threw Leonard’s towel in the direction of the bathroom. 

“I can make you breakfast.” He said, padding into the kitchen. Leonard was standing over the counter attempting to drink an entire cup of steaming coffee in one sip. They looked at each other and Jim raised his eyebrows at him. 

“You need to eat breakfast.” Jim said again. He walked over to the machine and poured the rest of the coffee into a mug for himself. 

“I’ll eat something at the hospital.” Leonard’s voice sounded strained, probably because he had just burned the surface of his entire throat. Jim breathed out a laugh, leaned against the counter across from him. 

“No you won’t.” Jim smiled. 

“You’re right. I won’t.” 

Leonard stepped closer and pulled Jim in for a kiss by the fabric of his shirt. It was more sweet than anything, because Jim was certain his breath was gross and he didn’t want to open his mouth against Leonard’s. 

“You should wear your glasses more.” Leonard said when they separated. He raised a hand to Jim’s face and pushed his glasses up a little. Jim wrinkled his nose. 

Leonard kissed him one more time before leaving the kitchen to find his shoes and jacket. Jim stayed with his back pressed to the counter, swirling the coffee around in his mug. He finally pushed off when it looked like Leonard was on his way out. 

“How long are you going to be out?”

“All day. It’s a twelve-hour shift.” Leonard rubbed his eyes.“Shit.” He muttered, “You’re gonna have to get Joanna from school.”

“Sure.” Jim played with the hem of Leonard’s baby blue shirt. He tried to think if he had ever seen his doctor boyfriend actually dressed like a doctor before. 

“You know where to go?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Make sure she eats well.”

“Speak for yourself, Bones.” 

Leonard rolled his eyes and shrugged his jacket on and Jim stepped away so he could get the door open. 

“Your health is just as important!” Jim called after him. 

“Whatever!” Leonard called back. 

Jim laughed and closed the door. He sat down on the couch, cushions warm from the sun pouring through the balcony doors. He had half of the day to himself, and then he had to pick Joanna up at 2:45 and get to work by 3:30. She didn’t take dance classes anymore, which meant Jim would probably just taker her to work with him. 

Christine would be thrilled. Or not. Probably not. But he was going to do it anyway. 

***

Joanna went to a smaller elementary school on the very edge of the city, closer to Leonard’s old suburb than it was to his new apartment. Jim was really glad he left early because oh god, did he get lost trying to find it. He stood in the school’s front courtyard with the other parents and guardians, the ones that weren’t driving through the carpool lane around back, leaning against the fence and sweating in his work clothes.

He half-expected Joanna to be confused, to look around for her father for a few minutes before finally spotting Jim. But her eyes seemed to land on him the second she walked into the courtyard. Jim could feel himself grinning like an idiot while she ran out to meet him. 

Joanna moved like she was about to jump into his arms, like she always did with Leonard, and he reeled back a bit. 

“Oh god, no, I’m not strong enough for that.” He held up his hands innocently and Joanna wrinkled her nose at him. 

“Daddy can do it.” She pouted. 

“Your daddy can also bench press 200 pounds. You’ve grown too big for me, girly girl.” 

Jim had tried to work out with Leonard once.  _ Once _ . After that nightmare he settled for jogging on the treadmill in a secluded corner and just meeting up with him afterwards (he could push himself to improve on a lot of things, but free weights was one of the lines he decided to never try to cross ever again). 

Finally Joanna was able to settle for holding his hand while they walked to the bus station. 

“How was school? Did you make any friends?” Jim asked.

“I already have friends.” She said in her tiny eight-year-old voice with the gruff sentiments of her thirty-something-year-old father. Jim almost laughed. 

“It’s never too late to make new ones.” He said, and if Joanna was old enough to understand the gesture she probably would have rolled her eyes, too. 

 

***

 

“And that…is how you restock a book.” Jim said, and slipped the first restock of his shift into its rightful place. He’d taken the time to explain, from start to finish, how books circulated in a big library like Atlanta’s. Halfway through he realized that it was completely and utterly boring--even though Joanna was doing a pretty good job, for her age, of pretending to be interested--but by then he couldn’t just give up. 

Joanna yawned a little bit. 

“Fascinating, I know.” He said flatly. Joanna shrugged and continued to follow him as he navigated through the library to return the rest of the books in his cart. She didn’t seem to mind the low-level excitement of Jim’s job, though, keeping herself busy by running her fingers along the spines and peeking through gaps in the shelves and probably coming up with ways she could manipulate Jim into buying her ice cream later. 

Jim got a kick out of spending time alone with her, mostly because she was  _ so much like Leonard _ , in nearly everything she did it was clear who her father was. He’d met Jocelyn a few times, only briefly, but he could tell that whatever Joanna picked up from her wasn’t quite as noticeable. 

“Jim. Who’s kid is that.” 

Jim turned and saw Christine standing a few feet away. She was holding a coffee cup from the break room, and she’d probably just come from there, only to witness Jim shelving books like usual with an unidentified child sitting on the empty side of his cart, swinging her feet back and forth in the air and watching people as they walked by. 

“Hey Christine.” Jim smiled. He hadn’t seen her around when he came in for his shift, which was probably why she hadn’t yet freaked out about the fact that Jim was toting around an eight-year-old. 

She propped her free hand against her hip, gave Jim a look that pretty much said _ you have ten seconds to answer my question _ . 

“This is Leonard’s daughter, Joanna.” Jim watched as she perked up at the sound of her own name, sorted out that she was being introduced to someone. 

“Hi.” She said, more shy than Jim had expected, but then again, he would admit to Christine being a little terrifying at times. 

Christine smiled tightly, and holy shit, she was definitely terrifying when she made a face like that. 

Suddenly Jim realized what was going on and he almost couldn’t suppress his laughter.  _ Christine was terrible with children _ . He’d never thought about it before, because the youngest person he’d ever seen her interact with was Pavel, but in front of Joanna it was like she didn’t even know how to act like a human. 

“Jojo this is Christine. She’s my boss.” 

“Your boss is a girl?”

For some reason Joanna looked genuinely surprised, and Jim really wanted to know where she was learning this kind of bullshit,  _ because it better not be Leonard _ . Christine snorted, taking a sip of her coffee. 

“Well yeah,” He replied, leaned over the cart on his elbows so he was level with Joanna, “girls can do anything, can’t they?”

Joanna thought for a minute. 

“Yeah.” She finally said. 

“There we go.” Jim turned to Christine, raised his eyebrows in a  _ see? I’m great with children _ gesture. At the very least he was trying to unlearn whatever sexism Joanna had already absorbed. Christine could be proud of him for that. 

“Well, _this_ _girl_ has gotta get back to work.” Christine said, pointing at herself, and Jim thought it was clever up until the point where she let out a bark of awkward, strained laughter while she tried to gauge Joanna’s nonexistent reaction. 

“Great.” Jim smiled a little too wide. The whole thing was hilarious to him. 

Christine retreated back to her desk and Joanna looked unfazed by the whole interaction, like she had already given up years ago on trying to understand the nuances of adult behavior. 

“Hey.” He looked back at Joanna. “Want me to show you where I met your dad?”

“In here?” Joanna asked. 

“Of course in here. Where else do you think we met?”

“I heard mommy on the phone once saying daddy picked you up off the street.” 

Jim laughed even though he really should’ve been offended by that. He started pushing the returns cart, wincing a bit at the combined weight of both Joanna and the books, and headed towards the Self Help aisle. 

“You know, sometimes people say things that they don’t mean.” He said casually, “For example, one of the first things your daddy said to me was  _ leave me alone _ .”

 

***

 

“ _ But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .  _

_ "One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"  _

_ And a little later you added: "You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."  _

_ "Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"  _

_ But the little prince made no reply. _ ”

Joanna fidgeted from under the blankets. Leonard was sitting next to her, on top of the covers, reading through another chapter of  _ The Little Prince  _ even though he’d sworn he would read only one tonight. Joanna leaned against his chest, staring at the pages with sleepy eyes. 

Sometimes Jim joined them, the three of them crowded on the pull-out while Leonard read, but tonight he felt like he didn’t belong there with them, for some reason. He stood in the kitchen and leaned against the counter, felt the smooth granite stay cold against his back. He watched the sunset through the balcony doors and listened to Leonard’s voice as his words floated through the air. Jim realized, distantly, that he was sad, and he wondered how that could be. 

“Why would the prince be sad?” Joanna asked, “He has his own planet.”

“Yeah, but he lives on that planet all alone, darlin’, don’t you think he’d get lonely?”

Joanna huffed and burrowed closer into Leonard’s side. Jim breathed out a laugh at her little attitude and Leonard glanced at him over the back of the couch, smiling. 

He pushed off of the counter and walked out of the kitchen. 

“I’m going to bed.” He said quietly, standing at the couch. Joanna looked up and reached a hand upwards towards him. Jim leaned over to kiss her forehead. 

“Goodnight Jojo.” He smiled.

“Aren’t you gonna kiss daddy goodnight?”

Leonard rolled his eyes and shook his head and Jim laughed, moving to kiss his forehead too. 

“I’ll be quiet.” Leonard whispered. 

Jim headed towards the bedroom and listened as the two of them picked up where they left off. 

“But he has the pilot with him now. He doesn’t have to be lonely anymore.” 

“Are you gonna let me read or what, girl?” 

“Fine.” Joanna sighed. 

Jim shut the door, stripped down to his boxers and stumbled around in the dark until he found the bed. He tossed and turned, too awake to sleep and too tired to get up. Finally he just laid on his back, stared upwards into the dark and tried to clear his head. 

He wasn’t sure how long it was until the murmurs from outside the room stopped and Leonard carefully came inside. He heard the sound of clothes hitting the floor, felt the duvet pulled back and the mattress shift. 

“Are you still up?” Leonard whispered, close enough that Jim could feel his warmth but still too far away. 

“Yes.”

Suddenly Leonard was touching him, finding his body in the darkness and pulling him closer until they were on their sides facing each other. His hand rubbed lazy trails up and down Jim’s back and Jim sighed. 

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Leonard said carefully. 

“I…” Jim started with no idea of how to end it. He frowned, tried again. “It’s a lot. There’s always been a lot.”

“Did I do something.”

“God, no. Of course not.” 

Leonard placed a hand on Jim’s face, cupping his cheek and silently asking for him to open his eyes. Jim did, waiting for them to adjust in the dark. He could see Leonard’s face vaguely, could see his eyes glinting in the blue light that filtered through the blinds. Jim took a shaky breath, wrapped his arms around Leonard and tangled their legs together and tried to let this be enough, for now. 

“I know you’re not ready to tell me everything. But I know something’s hurting you, Jim. I can’t just sit here and watch you try and go through it alone.”

Leonard was right, and it was almost worse knowing that he was hurting, too, in a distant, second hand way.

“Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”

Jim blinked slowly. He didn’t know where to start, or where to end, or what to say at all. He angled his head forward to kiss Leonard, slanting their mouths together slowly and with the ease of memory. 

“What do you need.” Leonard whispered again, barely an inch away. “What do you need, baby, tell me what you need.”

Jim squeezed his eyes shut. 

“I need...” He sighed, “I need to go home, I think. To Iowa.”

He hadn’t known it until the words finally came out. But he did. He  _ had _ to go back. 

“Okay.” Leonard’s thumb brushed over his cheekbone, as if he were just checking, quickly, to see if Jim had started crying. Jim smiled at that. 

“Do you want me to go with you?” He asked, fingertips now gliding softly over the planes of his face, and god, Jim could lie there and let Leonard do that for hours. 

“Please.” Jim said. 

“Okay.” Leonard breathed, “Then we’ll go.”

 

***

 

Jim spent the entire airplane ride fidgeting and second guessing himself and trying to do both discreetly so Leonard would stop giving him concerned looks. He hadn’t been on an airplane since--shit, he hadn’t been on an airplane since he was toting suitcases full of drugs across three and a half states. He wringed his hands together and chewed on his bottom lip until it started to go numb. Finally Leonard reached over and pulled one of Jim’s hands away, not looking up from the book he was reading. 

“You’re gonna worry yourself to death.” He whispered. 

Jim didn’t respond, he just let Leonard hold his hand in an iron grip and continued to shake his leg up and down, half from nerves and half as a pitiful act of defiance. He stared out of the window for a while, watching the clouds consume the airplane into a world of white for minutes at a time, until it reemerged back into blue sky and brown fields. He started to lose track of how long they’d been on the plane until Leonard let go of his hand to put their tray tables back up. Jim shook his head and told himself to get a fucking grip. 

“What if this is actually a really bad idea.” 

Leonard closed his book and shoved it in his bag underneath the seat before turning to look at Jim. 

“Then we don’t have to stay.” He said, like it was obvious.

Jim nodded absently. He stared straight ahead, twisting his hands together in his lap, and felt the chills up his spine as the airplane dipped closer and closer to the ground. Leonard just kept glancing back at him. He held tight onto the armrests while the plane moved, and Jim remembered bitterly that Leonard  _ hated _ airplanes. 

The plane finally touched ground and it distracted Jim for a minute. He looked out the window at the airport, at the faint shapes of buildings beyond it. He could barely start to feel it, the way the air had changed, the way  _ he _ had changed, being back home. 

“ _ Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Iowa City Municipal Airport _ .” 

Jim choked, suddenly. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes burning. 

“ _ What the fuck. _ ” He muttered into his palm, “What the  _ fuck. _ ”

Leonard must have sensed that Jim was two seconds away from losing it. He rested a hand on Jim’s knee, a solid, steadying pressure to keep him in the present moment. Jim forced himself to take shaking breaths. He was not about to start crying in front of everyone in a tiny airplane cabin. He was  _ not _ . 

He kept his head down while they got off the airplane, focusing on the feeling of his feet on the ground and Leonard’s hand around his bicep, steering him towards baggage claim. Time passed out of order without Jim looking up from the ground. Tiles, crowds, streets, buses, Jim let his mind blur it all together until the noise stopped. 

He was staring down at the dark wood of a restaurant booth. Leonard reached across the table and lifted his chin up to look into his eyes.

“I just lost you for almost an hour.” Leonard said, voice and face and eyes full of worry. 

Jim sighed and rubbed his eyes. They still stung like he was about to cry, but the tears weren’t there. He wouldn’t be surprised if the tears never came, if he was stuck on this edge of  _ almost  _ feeling for the entire trip. 

“What’s going on?” Leonard asked, quieter this time. 

Their waitress showed up and Jim was saved from trying to explain himself. He got caught figuring out how he would even start, considering he still didn’t even understand what had happened. He was listening just enough to hear Leonard order for him, and he smiled, blurring his vision around the center of the table. 

He looked back up when they were alone again, and Leonard was still watching him, waiting for an answer. 

“I don’t know,” Jim started, struggling to speak around the knot that had settled in his throat, “I don’t know. I just--I haven’t been home in a really long time, I guess.”

Leonard looked like he was studying Jim from across the table. He realized, now, faced with the proximity of his past life, that he had told Leonard almost nothing about it. The first time he had mentioned Riverside was when they were booking plane tickets a month earlier. And now here they were, surrounded by the landmarks of Jim’s coming of age, and he would have to start talking soon. 

“Seven years.” Jim added. 

“Have you spoken to your family at all?” 

“No.” He said, quiet so his voice wouldn’t break. Jim knew that was kind of a big thing to leave out, what with the  _ sneaking out before dawn to run away with Gary _ thing, but he also knew that family was more important to Leonard than almost anything else. He steeled himself for a lecture, for pity, for whatever Leonard’s face would look like as he slowly realized that Jim wasn’t anywhere near the person he thought he was. 

Instead Leonard said, 

“Tell me about them.” 

Jim was almost relieved. He didn’t want to talk, really, but Leonard was making it easier, taking away the responsibility of Jim trying to put things in order and start conversations. Jim took a deep breath. The more he talked, the easier it would get. 

“My dad died when I was born.” 

He watched for Leonard to react, but his expression didn’t change, open, waiting, listening. 

“Same day, actually.” He said, fiddling with the salt shakers, “He was on the phone with my mom on his way to the hospital. Car crash.”

“Shit.” Leonard breathed, but he didn’t say anything more. Jim knew he was supposed to continue. 

Talking about George Kirk wasn’t particularly hard, but it took him three tries for the next one. 

“It’s not like my mom completely gave up on me after that but, like, it’s hard to not look at your kid and immediately think about your husband that died while you were in labor. So I get it. She started to keep her distance after a while. People say I look like him.”

Leonard leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand. 

“I have a brother, too.” 

“Older?” Leonard prompted. 

“Yeah. Sam. He’s five years older. He ran away from home when I was like nine or ten.” Jim breathed out a laugh, “I never thought about it. I guess it runs in the family.” 

Leonard raised an eyebrow at Jim.  _ That _ , Jim realized,  _ probably wasn’t very funny. _

“Anyway,” Jim continued. He turned the salt shaker upside down and was a little taken aback when a shit ton of salt poured onto the table. Leonard flicked his gaze down to the table and back up at Jim. He reached over and placed his hand over Jim’s to turn the shaker upright and set it back down. 

“Sam came back when I was in highschool. He tried to move back in like nothing had happened, which was kind of a nightmare. He and my stepdad were always yelling at each other. That’s when I took on the other Kirk family tradition of underage drinking.” 

Jim smirked. 

“You don’t have to keep making jokes out of things that aren’t jokes.” Leonard drawled. He looked tired and travel-weary. Jim probably looked exactly the same, slouched across the table from him. 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t drink when you were a teenager.” 

“Of course I drank when I was a teenager.” His face softened a little bit, almost a smile, “But not from depression.”

Jim decided that he was going to completely bypass that subject. He perked up a little bit.

“Did you get invited to parties? Because I definitely took you for a total outcast. You know, because of the science and shit.”

“Outcast? Please, Jim, senior year I was voted Homecoming King  _ and _ Prom King.”

“No shit.” Jim felt himself grinning, “Wait. Bones. You were a total jock weren’t you.”

Leonard flushed slightly, looked away from Jim like he was both embarrassed and a little bit proud of himself still. 

“Linebacker. But not a  _ total _ jock. I was also student body president.”

“Oh fuck off.” Jim rolled his eyes. 

The waitress came back with their food then and Jim had to pause for a minute so he could glare at Leonard over the salad that was placed in front of him. 

“How have we not talked about what we were like in high school?” Leonard asked, taking a bite of his own salad as if it wasn’t gross. Jim picked up his fork and stabbed some greens onto it. 

“Because I don’t bring it up. And  _ apparently _ I had depression.”

“Medically speaking I’m pretty sure you still have depression.”

“Great.” Jim shoved the salad into his mouth, chewed a few times before speaking again, “Thanks for telling me.”

“You’ve been dissociating more than usual. I figured you knew.” Leonard shrugged his shoulders in a way that Jim had come to recognize as a silent  _ I’m sorry _ . “I can get you meds.”

“I don’t want meds.”

“I thought so.” He smiled lazily, and Jim’s chest tightened a bit. Leonard was always worried about him, because he was always worrying about  _ everything _ , but he still trusted Jim enough to hold back, to let him figure things out on his own when he needed to. He knew when  _ I’m okay _ meant Jim was really okay, and when it meant he was just working something out, and when it meant he needed to be held for a while. 

“I’m okay.” Jim said, somehow trying to say all three at once. He reached across the table to take Leonard’s hand. 

“Okay.” He replied, and then, “Eat your damn salad.”

 

***

 

It wasn’t until hours later, both of them spread out over the crisp white hotel sheets, when Leonard decided to bring it up again. Also worth noting was the fact that three of Leonard’s fingers were already in Jim’s ass. Jim could hardly hear him over the sound of his own breathing, the overbearing sensation of Leonard’s hands and his mouth against his neck. All he picked up was mumbling against his skin. 

“What. What is it.” He panted, opening his eyes for the first time in probably five minutes. He pulled Leonard’s head up so they could look at each other. 

“Why did you run away from home, anyway?” Leonard asked, fingers still moving in and out at a steady pace. 

“Now. You’re doing this now.” Jim let his head fall back onto the pillow. He stared up at the ceiling. His hands were still twisted in the sheets on either side of him and he let them relax, let his fingers splay out against the cool fabric. At one point Leonard had bent one of Jim’s legs forward until his calf rested against Leonard’s shoulder, and Jim couldn’t be bothered to move it. He flicked his gaze back to Leonard’s body over him, his face somehow searching as if this was an opportune moment for a fucking heart to heart. 

“We talk during sex all the time.”

“Yeah, about sexy stuff. Not about,” Jim gestured with his hand even though it was probably out of Leonard’s line of vision, “not about me.”

“ _ I _ think you’re sexy.” Leonard punctuated this with a rough twist of his fingers and Jim moaned embarrassingly loud before opening his eyes again to glare at him. Leonard smirked. 

“Whatever. Okay. You asked for it.” He pulled his hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “I ran away with my boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

“He was a lot older. It was...the whole thing was pretty gross.”

Jim wondered if he had killed the moment with that, because Leonard took his fingers out and set Jim’s leg back down. He leaned over him on one elbow, tracing his fingertips in little circles up and down Jim’s chest. 

“You can keep talking.” Leonard said casually, lashes dark against his cheeks as he looked down at Jim’s body, thank god, instead of his face. Jim had no idea what his face must have looked like, probably weird and awkward and not very sexy anymore. 

“I was a kid. I just wanted to get out of Iowa.” He closed his eyes against the memories of how desperate he had been, how naive and stupid and in love for the wrong reasons. “And Gary was hot and dangerous and from  _ California _ and I was in love. And I wanted to get out.”

“It’s okay, Jim. I get it.”

“Really.” 

“Yeah.” Leonard said casually, trailed his fingers up and down Jim’s side. It was gentle enough that it almost tickled. “You found someone you could be yourself with.”

“I guess.” Jim blinked his eyes open. He ran his fingers through Leonard’s hair until it was sticking up and smiled. “But not really.”

“Was he your first?” Leonard looked up at him through his lashes. 

“No. Just the first one who knew what he was doing.”

“Uh huh?”

“Yeah,” Jim let out a slow breath, “but not like you.”

Leonard smiled a little bit. 

“You mean, he never touched you like this?” He asked, still trailing his fingertips feather-light against Jim’s skin. The tone of his voice, low and breathy and so fucking hot, combined with the light touch, made Jim shiver. 

“I…” Jim couldn’t even think clearly enough to remember. All of his memories with Gary were tainted, now, anyway. 

“Or like this?” Leonard asked again, this time reaching back to stroke Jim’s cock steadily, with the perfect amount of pressure to keep him just on the edge of coming, and Jim would never be able to understand how Leonard was so good at this even with just  _ one hand _ . 

“No, never.” Jim panted, let his eyes fall closed. 

Leonard gave Jim’s cock a few more slow, deliberate strokes before pulling his hand away, shifting on the mattress. Jim wanted to whine at the loss of contact. His eyes shot open and Leonard was staring down at him, breathing heavy, eyes blown wide with lust. 

“Hey, what--” 

“Get up on your knees for me.” 

Jim obeyed, clumsily tried to push himself upright and Leonard was there helping him, guiding him up on his knees facing the headboard. Jim reached out and held onto the headboard to keep his balance, because he already had trouble staying up when Leonard’s hands were stroking down his chest like that as he pressed himself behind Jim. 

“What about this?” Leonard was just whispering now, with his mouth so close to Jim’s ear that his breath blew warm against his neck. He brought his hands up and circled his thumbs around Jim’s nipples, twisted them until they were aching and Jim moaned long and low in the back of his throat. “Did anyone ever touch you like this?”

Jim didn’t answer. He could hardly take steady breaths and before he knew it Leonard’s cock was there, finally, pressing inside of him and they both knew this feeling so well already but Jim was drowning in it all the same, suffocating, losing himself in the best possible way. 

They settled into a rhythm as Leonard fucked him in tight, fast strokes. Leonard was breathing hard and hot on Jim’s skin, holding his hips tight and pulling them to move together,  _ be _ together. Jim reached one of his hands back to weave his fingers into Leonard’s hair, tightening his grip until Leonard’s mouth pressed against the side of his neck. 

Jim was close, as much as he wanted this to last forever. His breaths were coming out high and desperate and Leonard moaned in response, pace just getting faster, harder, deeper on every thrust. 

He reached down and pulled at Jim’s cock, just on this side of too rough and Jim was coming, throwing his head back against Leonard’s shoulder and coming as Leonard fucked into him and stroked his cock and turned their faces together to kiss him, wet and clumsy and sloppy and perfect. 

They were still kissing like that, twisting so they could fit their mouths together, as Jim rode out his orgasm and Leonard followed him over the edge. 

“No,” Jim breathed, his body tired and practically melting into Leonard’s arms, “it was never like that.”

 

***

 

Both of them had settled down afterwards until they were almost asleep, but Jim knew there was one more thing. It was because of what had happened earlier that day, at the airport, and lots of times before. He felt like he needed to be honest--to himself as much as to Leonard. 

Jim rolled over, tapped Leonard until he was definitely not falling asleep anymore. Leonard blinked awake and glared at him for a few seconds before reaching over to turn the bedside lamp on. He rubbed his tired eyes with one hand. 

“What is it, Jim.”

Jim felt like he couldn’t get his words out fast enough. 

“Listen, this thing I do, with the spacing out and stuff--”

“Dissociation.” Leonard supplied, looking a little more awake than before in the way he was quietly watching and waiting, listening to Jim. 

“Right. the dissociating. It might never go away. I’ve been doing it for years now, ever since--ever since the night I was arrested, I think.”

“Darlin’, I know this already. What are you trying to tell me.”

“It’s just that...I might always be like this. I might never be…”  _ fixed _ , is what Jim wanted to say, but he knew that would take things too far. 

“I love you like this.” Leonard said finally. He held Jim’s face in his hands and Jim was trapped, unable to look away from his eyes, his big, searching eyes. “I love you any way you are, Jim, even the way you are when your mind is somewhere else.”

“Really?” Jim knew it was true. he could hear and see and feel the truth in his words. He really didn’t need to be told again, but a part of him still wanted it.

“I know what I’m getting, Jim. I know  _ you _ . I’m not expecting anyone else.”

“Okay.” Jim breathed.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” 

Leonard pulled him forward into the warmth of his chest and Jim sighed. His chest felt heavy and his head felt light and he wondered if he was ever going to be able to sleep easily, because it seemed like being here and being with Leonard and talking about his past and having an orgasm would all tire him out enough for it to happen. He was so tired after today. But then again, he was always so tired lately.

“I love you too.” He said, to the skin next to Leonard’s collarbone. “I don’t say it enough. But I love you. Any way you are.”

 

***

 

Jim tapped his knuckles against the car window, watching fields and houses and abandoned gas stations pass by. Somehow he had expected everything to be different, he had hoped that Iowa moved on after he left. At the very least, it meant he could move on too. But everything was eerily familiar. 

“Can I roll the window down.” He asked quietly. Leonard had been driving in silence for a while, not a worried or an awkward silence, just silence, but Jim found himself longing for noise and distraction. He wanted to feel the wind on his face. He wanted to breathe the cool morning air. 

“Sure,” Leonard replied, “but it’s kinda cold out there.” 

Jim scoffed. 

“Cold for you. You need to get out of Atlanta more.”

He rolled the window down and leaned his face out into the sunshine. 

“How are you feeling?” Leonard asked. His voice seemed to carry over the sound of the wheels on the dirt road and the wind against the car. In that moment Jim felt like he could hear Leonard’s voice from miles away, if he wanted to.

“Weird.” Jim closed his eyes.

“Nervous?”

“Yeah, maybe.” 

“What do you think they’re gonna say?” 

“I don’t know. Depends on who’s home.”

“What’s that mean.”

“Not everyone in that house might be...welcoming.” Jim thought of his stepfather, of when Sam had come home after all those years and Frank was the only one awake. After the two of them had started screaming at each other, though, everyone else was awake, too. 

“Huh.”

“I don’t know what I’m expecting.”

“It’s probably best if you don’t expect anything.”

Jim sighed, brought his head back inside the car and leaned against the seat. He blinked his eyes open and held his hand over the edge of the window, letting the air pass through his fingers. 

“Hey, look at it this way. You’re coming home with a full time job, a degree in computer science, an acceptance letter to graduate school,  _ and  _ a boyfriend who’s a doctor. Any parent would be thrilled.”

“You work in management.” Jim looked at him from the corner of his eye, waited for him to get fed up like he always did. 

“Shut up. I’m a doctor.” He griped, and Jim smiled. 

“Also my family doesn’t know about the gay thing.”

“The gay thing?”

“The thing where I’m gay.”

“Oh.”

Somehow, Jim hadn’t thought about that before now. He hadn’t thought about coming out at all, seeing as he left with the intention of never coming back. 

“Does yours?”

“Yeah. When I was in high school my parents caught me making out with the running back. They figured it was just me being rebellious.”

“What are the odds of two people being gay in the shit town where you grew up?”

Leonard snorted.

“Our town wasn’t shit. We had a Walmart. Riverside doesn’t even have a Walmart, I should be asking you the same question.”

“I only fooled around with older men. I’ll bet more than half of them weren’t even gay.”

Something about Jim bringing up his whole  _ teenager hooking up with adults _ phase always seemed to make Leonard pause. Jim wasn’t sure if it was jealousy or some awkward reaction to the fact that the two of them weren’t exactly the same age or if he was doing that thing where he made himself sad over Jim’s own issues. Considering Leonard, it was probably all three. Finally he spoke up again. 

“How did your family never catch on to something like that?”

“If they _ did _ catch on they probably didn’t even want to talk about it.”

“Well,” Leonard sighed, “now they get to.”

Jim breathed out a laugh. He could tell they were getting closer, just by the way the fields changed. Only a few minutes later they passed the sign  _ Welcome to Riverside, Iowa _ , which at least looked like it had been replaced since Jim left, maybe even redesigned slightly. He didn’t want to wait and watch as that bar passed by; he knew it was less than a mile away. Instead he turned his head, watching Leonard’s face as he drove, the way his eyebrows knitted together like they always did when he was focused on something. He was already starting to get a little wrinkle there, next to his left eyebrow. Whenever Jim saw it it made him want to smooth it out with his fingertips. 

By the time he looked back at the road they had already passed it. He could see the outline of his tiny hometown on the horizon. 

“You’re gonna have to navigate from here.”

“Yeah.” Jim took a deep breath, and it didn’t take long for his mind to start working like he had been in Riverside all along, mapping out their route to his house. “Okay. Go straight down main street and then take a right once you reach the end of town.”

“Alright.” 

Leonard snorted as they passed through the heart of the town, which proved that even the word “town” was a little generous. 

“What do y’all do for fun around here? Count sticks?” He asked, slowing to a stop at Riverside’s one and only traffic light. 

“We also eat corn.” Jim said flatly. 

“Oh, give me a break.” 

“I used to have a motorcycle.” Jim said offhand. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Sometimes I’d just...drive. Anywhere. Everywhere. To the state line and back.”

Leonard smiled to himself, eyes still on the road.

“That sounds like you.”

“Take a left up here and follow it. You’ll start passing houses in a little bit.”

“And your house?”

“Yeah.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence, and then they were on his street, the little almost-suburb where Jim grew up. The houses were too far apart to be considered a neighborhood, but they all stood on the same road, which was close enough. 

Everything looked the same. A couple new coats of paint, maybe, on some of the houses. Some new mailboxes that meant new residents. But Jim watched the street pass by and he felt almost like he had never left. 

“That’s the one. On the left. With the blue mailbox.” 

Leonard pulled up the drive, long and wide enough to be its own little road. 

“Fuck.” Jim breathed.

“Come on.” Leonard turned off the car, patted Jim’s thigh and got out. 

“ _ Fuck. _ ” Jim said again. He got out and followed Leonard up the driveway to the front door. His old driveway. His old door. His old life. 

Leonard stood on the porch awkwardly, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, waiting for Jim to do something like knock or ring the doorbell or maybe have a panic attack. He glanced over at the driveway, empty save for their rental. 

“You sure someone’s home?”

Jim studied the house for a second. There was no way to tell, really, if anyone was home. If his mother was drinking or sleeping through the day it would look no different than if she weren’t home. Sam’s car wasn’t there, if he still even lived here. And his stepfather’s truck wasn’t there either. 

He shrugged. 

They both stood in front of the door for a minute. It was so surreal, feeling like an outsider here. In any other universe he would just open the door, go right inside, all the way upstairs to his bedroom. Depending on the day maybe he would have slammed his door shut, turned his stereo as loud as it went to drown out the sound of anger that seemed to ring through the whole house. 

Finally he rang the doorbell faster than his mind had processed the idea. He couldn’t hear the bell, maybe because his heart was beating so loud or maybe because it hadn’t even rang. Leonard laced their fingers together and squeezed his hand, quickly, before pulling away. 

“Maybe she’s not home.” Jim whispered. He couldn’t decide if that was the outcome he wanted or not. 

The lock clicked and Jim started. He was about to say  _ fuck _ again, because apparently that was his thing now, but then the door opened. 

“Hi mama.” He said, voice a little shaky. 

She didn’t say anything. She looked exactly like he had imagined, the way she aged in his head the years they were apart. He hadn’t imagined her expression, though, the shock, the disbelief, something he could only place as almost desperation. 

“Oh my god.” She nearly jumped forward to pull him into her arms. He was more than a foot taller than her, now. He had to bend over to hug her back, bury his face into her shoulder. She smelled like candles and soap and whiskey. 

“You’re back.” She breathed, “You’re here. You’re back. Oh, Jimmy.” She held him tight, too tight, pulled back and took his face in her hands. 

Jim didn’t have too many memories of her smile. Most of them were from early in his childhood, before he had really started to take after his father. Before she had met Frank. Before Sam ran away. 

She was smiling now, more than Jim had ever seen. He could feel himself tearing up when he realized she was happy, he was welcomed, he was  _ wanted _ . 

“You’re so grown.” She said, tears rolling down her cheeks already. “So handsome. How’d you get so handsome?”

Jim felt so full of relief, of happiness that all he could do was laugh. He covered her hands with his own and pulled them away, held them like he never had before. 

“Well, come on then.” She sniffed and glanced over Jim’s shoulder at Leonard, looking back to Jim only a second later like she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. “Come in. I’ll make you breakfast.”

Neither of them mentioned that they had already eaten, or that it was practically afternoon by then. They just followed her inside. Leonard smiled at Jim and held his face for a second when his mother wasn’t looking, swiped his thumb across his cheek to wipe away the tears there. 

“ _ I told you. _ ” He whispered. 

“Shut up.” Jim batted his hand away, feeling weightless with relief and happiness and everything in between.

She turned around once they were all in the kitchen, as if she just had to check and make sure Jim was still there. Jim saw her look at Leonard again. 

“Mama this is Leonard.” He and Leonard caught eyes for a second, both a little bit nervous. 

Leonard smiled at her and nodded and shook her hand like the southern boy he was. Jim spoke up again awkwardly. 

“He’s my--” The word seemed to be lost from his throat. Even so,  _ boyfriend _ didn’t quite seem to fit everything that Leonard was to Jim anyway. 

His mom seemed to understand, somehow, which he had never expected. 

“Hi Leonard.” She smiled back, and let go of his hand so she could kiss him on the cheek. Leonard was even taller than Jim, and larger. Jim breathed out a laugh at the way he had to bend over and she had to stand on her toes. 

“Alright now sit down. Both of you.”

“Yes ma’am.” Leonard said and Jim laughed. He couldn’t seem to stop laughing he was so full of light. 

They sat down at the kitchen table and Jim just watched as she paced around the kitchen with an energy that betrayed her age. Her hair was almost half-gray now and she was wearing what looked more like pajamas than regular clothes, like she had clearly just woken up. Jim’s heart sank a little to think of how much harder her life must have been after he left. It had been so selfish of him, to leave like that, like the only life he ever needed to think about was his own. 

He made sure to keep smiling every time she looked over her shoulder at him.

“Sam should be home around six or seven.” She said, digging through the cabinets for coffee grounds. “He owns the body shop, now. The one next to the grocery store.”

The way his mother talked about Sam, now, without the pain in her voice anymore, made Jim think that maybe things didn’t turn out  _ too _ bad. At the very least it gave him cause for hope that everyone wasn’t still constantly fighting like they were in the home that he left.

“He still lives here?” Jim asked. 

“Well, sorta.” She snorted and started making coffee.

“What’s that mean?” 

“It means Sam’s got a girlfriend who lives in town.” She turned around to face him and crossed her arms, raised one eyebrow. “And he’s practically living there part time.” 

Jim breathed out a laugh. That wasn’t even a surprise. 

“Do you two live together?” She asked, still facing them but keeping an eye on the coffee pot. She didn’t seem to have any trouble accepting that the two of them were an item, which Jim was still trying to wrap his head around. 

“Yeah.” Leonard answered for him. 

“We live in Atlanta.”

“Georgia? Good lord.” She waved her hand dismissively and turned back around. 

“It’s alright. Hot as hell. But you get used to it.” 

Leonard rolled his eyes at that one. 

A few seconds later and his mother was at the table, setting down coffee and milk and sugar. Leonard just took his black but Jim let her add cream and sugar until it was hardly coffee-colored. He remembered absently that that was how she always drank her coffee, too. 

“I’m guessing that’s where you met Leonard.” She said, sitting down across the table. She looked over at him. “Since you’re clearly from Georgia.”

“Guilty.” Leonard drawled, his chin propped up on his hand. He seemed to be enjoying this; Jim could tell that he had probably been watching for similarities between Jim and his mother since the beginning. 

“And how did that happen.” She asked, pouring a shit ton of milk into her own coffee. Jim caught Leonard smirking at it. 

“Oh, god.” Jim looked over at Leonard. 

“It’s a long story.” Leonard said, giving him a private sort of smile. 

 

***

 

She never asked any questions that had to end in Jim telling her about Gary or prison or any of the other things he wasn’t ready to talk about. But she wanted to know everything else, about Leonard and Jim’s job at the library and his college degree and Joanna (who she was more than excited to hear about). 

The table was only set for four that night and Jim understood without having to ask that Frank wasn’t around anymore. It was a relief, not having to face him. The only person left to face was Sam.

He watched for his car at the window while Leonard and his mother were in the kitchen. The two of them had really started to hit it off after a while, which came as no surprise. It was near impossible _ not  _ to fall in love with Leonard McCoy if you met him in the right circumstances, when he wasn’t stressed or grumpy or bitching about something. 

But with the mood he was in now, Jim figured it was even possible for Sam to like him. 

A car finally pulled into the driveway and Jim expected to feel nervous, watching Sam step out of the car and walk up the drive, stopping to inspect the rental car parked next to him. But he didn’t feel nervous at all. Maybe because the two of them were used to being apart like this. Because Jim knew Sam would understand, even after so long. 

Jim went and flopped onto the couch, and from that point he could see both the front door and the two figures in the kitchen. Speaking of which,

“Hey, Len?” He called. 

“Yeah?” 

“Are my glasses in the car?”

“ _ How should I know? _ ” 

“Ugh.” He turned over onto his back, shifting into the couch cushions. 

“You gotta keep track of those things, Jim, it ain’t my fault you’re going blind.” Leonard said and Jim just groaned again. He turned his head when he heard the door opening. 

“Hey ma, why is there a rental--oh shit.”

“Language!” His mom yelled from the kitchen. 

“Oh hey.” Jim said casually. 

Sam turned and looked at him on the couch, working his jaw and obviously trying not to smile. He looked a lot like Jim but taller and thinner and his short dark hair was somehow always a mess. Jim could see grease stains on his blue jeans and the skin of his forearms. It seemed fitting, now, that he owned a body shop, because even when they were younger he was always tinkering with whatever he could get his hands on. 

He crossed his arms over his chest and Jim was pretty sure the t-shirt Sam was wearing actually used to be his own. 

“Oh hey? Seven fucking years and all I get is  _ Oh hey _ ?”

“ _ Language! _ ”

“Get over here, stupid. Come on. Get up.” 

Jim held out his hand and Sam yanked him off of the couch and into a hug. 

“Took you long enough.” He grumbled, and he was a lot stronger than he looked because Jim couldn’t really breathe in the fucking vice grip of his arms. Finally he let go and Jim nearly lost his balance. 

“Where have you been?” 

“Lots of places.”  _ Hotel beds, shady drug exchange spots, airport bars, prison; _ Jim figured he could leave a lot of those out for the time being. “Mostly Georgia.”

“Dinner’s ready!” Their mother called both of them to the kitchen like it was any other day, like they had dinner as a family every night, like Jim had never left. 

There was still a lot he had to explain and a lot of questions he needed to answer--why he and Leonard both turned down drinks with dinner and why Jim wasn’t planning on moving out of Georgia and why he had run away to begin with--but the anxiety that Jim had felt leading up to this day was all gone now. He sat at the table with his mom and his brother and the love of his life and he knew that everything had turned out good, that  _ he _ had turned out good. 

The conversation slowed down naturally once they all became comfortable. Even Leonard, which, if Jim was being honest, seeing Leonard fit in comfortably with his family, regardless of the context of their visit, made him feel inexplicably happy and somehow even more in love. 

“You know,” Sam said, sliding his plate to the side so he could prop his elbows onto the table, “we’ve still got your motorcycle.”

Jim whipped his head up. 

“You’re kidding.”

“It’s in the garage.”

“You’re not serious right now.”

“One hundred percent.”

Sam quirked his eyebrows up and Jim had to bite his lip to keep from smiling too wide. He looked over at Leonard who was still eating and then his mother and then Sam and then his mother again before she finally rolled her eyes. 

“You boys get out of here. Go show him that damn motorcycle.” 

It took everything for Jim not to sprint out of there and make a beeline for the garage. He and Sam stood up and Jim grabbed Leonard’s arm and pulled him along with them, from the kitchen table through their tiny living room and into the dusty garage. 

Sam flicked the light on and there it was in the corner, half-covered with a tarp. The part that he could see looked like it had been painted recently, a shiny rocket red that Jim would never in a million years have let Sam put on his motorcycle. 

He reverently pulled away the tarp while Sam and Leonard stood back. 

“Man, this color is awful.”

“You left it in my hands.” Sam shrugged, “I still think it’s pretty sweet.”

“I’m with Jim on this one.” Leonard said, and Jim looked up at him and somehow managed to smile bigger than he already was. “You’re gonna get pulled over with a color like that.”

Jim threw one leg over the motorcycle and sat on it for the first time in seven years and fuck, it felt good to be home.

“Did you do anything else to it?” 

Sam leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, looking awfully proud of himself. Jim didn’t even care enough to be possessive about Sam messing with his motorcycle; he was just happy to see it again. 

“I fixed the problem you were having with the acceleration. Rides like a dream, now.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that.” 

Sam snorted and hit the button to open the garage door. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” He said, and pushed off of the wall to go back inside. Once he’d shut the door Jim looked back to Leonard, and he must have had some sort of devilish glint in his eye because Leonard started shaking his head no. 

“Get on.”

“Nope.”

Jim stepped off, pushed up the kickstand and walked the motorcycle across the garage to where Leonard was standing. The keys were already in the ignition so he sat back down again, so eager to ride he was almost shaking with it.

“Get on or I’m breaking up with you.” He deadpanned. 

Leonard sighed in what was almost a laugh. 

“You are such a child.”

“I know. Get on.”

“Ugh.”

Finally Leonard settled onto the seat behind Jim. He barely fit, forcing the two of them to sit pressed up against each other. Jim started the engine and slowly rode out onto the driveway, stopped at the end to make sure that the road was empty as far as he could see. 

And then he reached back, pulled Leonard’s arms to wrap around his waist, and floored it. 

Jim was so caught up in the feeling of being back on the road after so long, with the wind in his face and his hair and the road seemingly endless in both directions, that he hardly even noticed Leonard letting out strings of curses as they picked up speed. Eventually he just angrily pressed his face into Jim’s shoulder and held on for his life. 

They rode until the sun had dipped completely under the horizon, until Jim had covered almost every street and dirt road he knew and Leonard had lifted his face and loosened his arms around Jim’s waist. Jim knew where he needed to go next. 

He took them in the direction they came, out to the very edge of town before the sign that read  _ Now Leaving Riverside, Iowa _ on the opposite side, to the bar. The bar, he realized, where it all really began. 

Jim took a deep breath when he knew they were coming close. Although his first sign should’ve been the fact that he couldn’t see the lights on against the navy blue sky. 

He pulled over on the side of the road where the bar was, 

or, where it used to be, at least. 

There was nothing left of the crappy, wooden, saloon-style building. There wasn’t even a sign that it had stood there years before. The dirt had leveled out and the grass had started growing again and the only evidence that Jim hadn’t made the whole thing up was the  _ Lot For Sale _ sign right in the middle of where it once stood. 

“Why’d you stop.” Leonard said, his voice a little hoarse, “I was finally starting to like it.”

“I…” Jim drove off of the road into the field a little before turning the motorcycle off and parking it. He climbed off. 

“There used to be a bar. Right here.” He said, staring out into the open sky. There was nothing ahead of them for miles and miles. He used to hate that about Iowa. 

He turned to look at Leonard, who got the message and stepped off of the motorcycle too. 

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. They took it down I guess. Place was probably full of fire code violations anyway.”

“I meant,” Leonard moved to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder, facing the empty horizon, “what happened when it  _ was _ here.”

“Oh.” 

Time and time again Jim had found himself terrified for when this moment would finally come, when it made sense for him to give Leonard the full story rather than glimpses of it. And yet, here he was, here  _ they _ were, at the very beginning, and Jim didn’t feel scared at all. 

It just felt...right. Like he was finally ready. 

Jim reached around in the dark and took Leonard’s hand, and finally, with the audience of only the sky and the stars and the endless fields, finally he started to talk. 

 

***

  
_ end.  _


End file.
